


Quid Pro Quo

by Cloudfield



Series: Where There's Smoke [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 04:56:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudfield/pseuds/Cloudfield
Summary: In which Harry knows exactly what he wants during Voyager’s early days in the Delta Quadrant, black and white parameters and all, and Tom thinks he might have an unusually hard time sticking to them.





	Quid Pro Quo

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote ~7000 words of gay porn for a 20 year old sci-fi fandom and have more planned. Send help. I blame the friend who gave me the novels. I defy you to tell me the authors of Caretaker did not ship this.

There’s a significant part of Tom that would like to believe this can't be happening. He'd like to, and yet, thirty minutes ago, if he'd been asked, he’s not sure he'd have said no to being in this position. Hell, he’s not saying no now, even knowing he could, no questions asked. It seems like a stupid waste at best and dangerous at worst - the only person on this stranded vessel who seems to have a lick of respect for him other than the captain and the only one _period_ who likes him - so the fact he might have asked for it not an hour ago seems frankly risible, but hey, what was it he’d told the captain? _Story of my life._

Tom doesn't believe they're all right about him in every respect - but fuck, where there’s smoke there's fire, and Tom’s always seemed to give off more than his share of smoke. He'd picked up the phrase ‘four-alarm fire’ in some old nautical novel, once, and taken some youthful perverse pride in applying it to himself. Tom harbours no illusions about himself and tells himself he likes it that way.

He hadn't been ready to be confronted by the fact that upright, puppy eager, newly-minted ensign Harry Kim might want to believe the same thing about himself. He’s still not sure the kid can even possibly be correct about that desired self-image.

Kid’s got more balls than he gets credit for, though, Tom’ll give him that much, even if he does go shrinking violet under even the spectre of Starfleet authority. Oh, it was green as grass, the way he'd reacted to the Ferengi barkeep on Deep Space 9, but it had still been his best attempt at a flat declaration of disinterest. ‘I don't need anyone to choose my friends for me,’ that had later been followed with: ‘And anyway - on one hand I had Dr. Fitzgerald. The man is… _was,_ ’ a touch rueful, there, ‘an ass. I knew I didn't like him on the spot. And you? Hell, I don’t know, Paris. Jury’s out on the ass thing yet, but I do like you.’

The more the kid says things like that, the more Tom thinks maybe he should shake him, for his own good.

Right now, Tom’s sure he should shake him. Only problem is, he doesn't want to. At present Tom’s hands are pinned to his sides, his upper body caged in Harry’s arms. He could do it, though, sure; he’s barely more than thirty and the penal colony in Auckland hadn't exactly been a pleasure cruise to Risa, and sure, at least in his day the PT cadets went through at the Academy was a joke next to hard labour, a certain precise level of physical conditioning having been considered to produce peak efficiency, and sure, Harry’s a whole lot stronger than he looks and something like ten years younger and just coming into his physical prime… Okay, so that train of thought isn't helping. His brain's shot, his mouth's swollen, and he's something a little more than half hard, so back up, Paris, what did you miss that got you here?

Fresh off duty, still learning _Voyager’s_ systems and exhausted with the unaccustomed mental exertion of it, for all he preferred it to mindless menial labour. In bed in drab grey civvies reading a report Torres had given him on a PADD. His door chimed. Some tension, then, a spark of disconcertion, knowing that his so called bodyguard was certainly a man of his word but spared him no emotion and could be anywhere on the ship at this hour. Privacy lock on the door, though, and he didn't have to answer - he’d know if he did, be aware in seconds, if the time came that he was needed, because how the hell had he wound up an officer again in a whirlwind like this? Still, there were people he'd want to answer; he owed his captain if no one else the privilege of a courtesy call, and it was easy enough to ask the computer.

‘Ensign Kim,’ and Tom wasn't quite up to his newly emulated Sandrine’s, any more - but he could think of worse company, he figured he owed Harry enough loyalty not to ignore him, and it wasn't like the replicator made anything different for any of them, asked simply for ‘off-duty.’ Fourteen kinds of tomato soup but not one inquiry about what someone might prefer to wear. In some ways, maybe, he considered wryly, Starfleet wasn't so far off from Auckland after all.

So Tom answered the door and offered Harry a tea, secretly relieved when the younger man led off with his being too tired to mingle but needing company of a sort, and they’d made pleasant small talk. Actual, refreshingly pleasant small talk, and Tom still didn't know how to handle that, not needing to employ charm and wit to keep a step ahead of someone whose real feelings for him he knew all too well, not bound by some necessary label of ‘model prisoner’ or ‘observer,’ close enough to the position he'd been raised for all his life to make his instincts take over.

It had been nothing unseemly, not even anything interesting; at least insofar as anything they had to make idle chatter about these days was uninteresting. Tom had no indication whatsoever of what might be coming, not when Harry blushed as ever at his more lurid teasing and remained as immaculately pressed as he’d been when his shift began, still in uniform. Certainly there’d been no seduction, no wine or soft jazz or even the suggestion of anything untoward. 

Tom’s senses were at least acute enough that he’d known not to make a crack about the Delaney sisters when Harry had finally looked into his tea with a silence a beat longer than it should have been and then back up at Tom in that serious, intense way that - well, Tom couldn't say he reserved it for special occasions, but this time, somehow, it had felt like one. Credit where credit’s due, though - Harry got it out in one evenly paced, cohesive sentence. 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said - about how long we might be out here and about Libby, I mean,” he clarified. Tom felt sorry for him even knowing it was stupid, the way he couldn't seem to help doing with Harry. He needed to get over it - both of them did, Tom his sentimentality and Harry his naiveté. That remained objective truth, and Tom tamped the feeling down in the space of a breath as always.

“Listen, Harry, I know none of this is… It’s not what any of us planned.” That it didn't get seem such a _bad_ thing to Tom personally, he kept to himself. No reason to set himself even further apart from the people it looked like he’d live and die with. “But look, you’re a scientist. You know those readings better than any of us. That’s why you got your job.” A grin to match the appeal to the younger man’s pride; Tom didn't let it waver when Harry failed to react with the tellingly too-stern, just barely quirking look that usually came in the wake of such attempts.

“I know,” Kim sighed in response, taking another sip of his tea before setting it down. “But as a scientist, I’ve got every reason to believe in what some people might call miracles.”

“In this case, I think that might qualify as lightning striking twice,” Tom pointed out, though he couldn't argue the premise.

“Doesn't stop me from hoping it will,” Harry said evenly, “or from knowing it probably won't. But I can't give up on it yet. I had plans. I had a life laid out for me, one I'd wanted since I was a kid. I had friends, I had a home, I had a career ahead of me… I had Libby and —”

“And two point five kids, a Golden Retriever, and an office job waiting for you, when you’d got the wanderlust out of your system,” Tom interrupted, more harshly than he’d meant to. “I’m sorry, Harry, if that’s what you want me to say. Tell you a secret, though? That’s not how it is for me.”

It’s not like Kim’s stupid; he had to have known that. Tom’d never voiced it before, though.

“I know,” Harry said again, resigned. “And if you want to hear a secret, I'm a little jealous of that.”

It should have stopped Tom cold. It nearly did. It did piss him off - Harry’s perfect from the outside looking in had been just as it appeared. It was that, though, that was enough to make Tom temper himself. He couldn't have known any better. Harry at least had character, seemed to strive to have more substance than most of his breed, and Tom himself had grown sick and tired of his own ‘poor little rich boy’ routine years ago.

“I wouldn't be, if I were you,” Tom told him in the end, hoping Harry didn't hear the catch he felt in his voice, and left it at that.

“It can't have been easy for you,” Harry said at length, and if Tom had heard that a hundred times and grown weary of it, it was more sympathy than anyone had offered him in a very long time. Just for once in his life he wanted to not screw things up - this friendship, his field commission, none of it - so he stayed silent, and Harry went on, “So that’s where I’m at. I know what's likely and I can't help hoping for what's not. And I wouldn't blame Libby. I won't, when it comes down to it, but I can't do it, not yet. But you got me thinking. About interim feasibility.”

“I think that's what a lot of us are going to be after, Harry,” Tom rejoinedered. “The Delaney sisters, for one. Believe me, neither of them was after a marriage proposal. As strange as this might sound to you, ensign,” Tom put a lilting jocularity into his tone, “sometimes, when two people like each other just enough, and everything around them’s gone pear shaped, sometimes those people blow off some steam.” It was condescending and more cruel than Tom would have liked it to be, and more than not blaming him, Tom might have been proud, if Harry had hit him or told him to go to hell and stalked off. He’d seen glimpses enough of Harry’s temper to half expect it.

He hadn't entirely missed his mark, either, because sure enough Harry did growl, “Go to hell, Paris,” and then he'd kissed him soundly and surely enough to catch Tom entirely off of his guard.

The thing was? Somehow he was good at it, good enough to make Tom give back as good as he was getting, settle into a more passive role when it was clear that was how things were going to go most smoothly. If Harry had faltered, if his hands had trembled at all where they were curled into Tom’s shirt - it might have been an instant bucket of cold water. But he didn't, and Tom spent a good ten seconds operating on pure instinct; if he was usually the aggressor with women, even if he usually was with men, he’d never taken exception to rolling with what came, either, and even though Harry didn't taste bitter like cheap beer or dust and grit it was familiar enough, and it had been a long, long time since Tom had consciously denied his appetites, should-I-or-shouldn't-I be damned.

But then there had been a low rumble from Harry’s chest and a thumb sweeping its way into the sensitive, vulnerable hollow where Tom’s ear met his jaw and it was his own answering noise, much too close to a whimper, that put his feet back as near to terra firma as they’d be able to get.

“Harry, Harry,” Tom said, a little muffled on the pop of their separation, laughter, hesitation, and urgency all in one in his voice, coming out something close enough to his usual tone, “I mean, I, I’m obviously not exactly saying no here, but give a guy a little warning, would you? Maybe just a little more context, since you seemed to want to, a minute ago?”

Unbelievably, Harry laughed, this time with a trace of self-consciousness. “I’m not entirely sure I've got what you're looking for, Tom. I don't,” he closed his eyes and swallowed, “It’s been so crazy, and I need _something,_ here, and you were the only one…”

But Harry was a picture like that, smiling in spite of himself and his whole face flushing in a way that wasn’t from their kissing, and if Tom had never quite commuted the flicker of affection he felt for the kid when he looked like that to something quite so active, neither was he sure he wanted to hear the rest of that sentence. Either Harry Kim was about to say something he'd only want to take back or there was some part of him that thought no differently of Tom than anyone else, and Tom wasn’t sure which of them he was protecting when he tucked a pointer finger under Harry’s chin to draw him in and breathed, “Okay,” taking no more than the glance into Harry’s eyes than he needed to see he wouldn't be rebuffed before kissing him again.

He was still letting Harry take the lead, he thinks now, but for all that it was just moments ago with his own surrender that things started to get foggier than Tom knows he ought to have let them. There wasn't the breath for any more words, just teeth and urgency and desperation, raw humanity under pressure as much as anything else, Tom managed to theorize before Harry found that tender spot again on either side of his face and drew him in closer, and Tom wondered if Harry was kissing him like this because it was how he'd kissed Libby - because it was how he kissed women - and it was just one more time he should have hit the brakes and couldn't, and sometime shortly thereafter he was on his back on his lumpy standard issue couch with Harry tasting his pulse, still stroking that spot behind his ear, and for a time he was gone. Beyond recall, giddy with simpler things than he’d once have thought he’d need to appreciate - privacy and cleanliness and the simple fact that here was someone, given free range in the wider world, he still might have chosen.

 _Voyager_ was not a prison, not to Tom, not compared to where he'd come from, but to its other inhabitants, fewer even in number than they _had_ been in the penal colony…

“Harry,” he tried again, this time raspier, “come on, give me a minute here.”

And so here they are, both short on breath and shorter on rational thought than they should be, and Tom’s frantic recollections of the build up to now have given him exactly nothing useful that he has the courage to say.

The way Harry’s tongue slides over his upper lip is nervousness, Tom can see that, but it does nothing to tame the fire in his belly, especially not when Harry sits up. That seems like it might be helpful until he settles and Tom realizes they’re in much the same state below the belt. He swallows his groan but Harry catches it and smiles again. “Yes, lieutenant?” It’s all innocence, but not the way Tom’s used to from Harry. If Neelix has accidentally picked up some godawful tasting indigenous aphrodisiac, he’s a dead man, Tom decides with conviction.

“Oh, no, absolutely not,” Tom says with vehemence. That he can't handle, not now. Still, even though he’s grasping at straws and only weakening his own position, he lowers his voice and doesn't need any help to keep it breathy when he adds, “Are we clear, ensign?”

Harry scowls, affronted, all himself again, and oh, this is bad; this is so very, very bad, because Tom wants to kiss the look from his face and he knows none of this should happen but he knows himself too, and he knows which will win in the end. Ground rules, then, that at least; he has to say that much. “If you're not gonna give me anything else to work with here, Harry, I think you have to know how this needs to be.”

“I know how it has to be,” Harry doesn't quite huff, more dignified than that, never quite petulant for all it tends to threaten in at his edges. “You gave me a pretty good run down just now, talking about the Delaney sisters. And that’s how I _want_ it to be. What I don't want…” Harry’s finally colouring up in earnest this time, glowing to his ears and looking at Tom through his lashes like he can't quite manage eye contact, and it sets Tom’s nerves at ease a bit with the familiarity of it. “I don't want the Delaney sisters. Not that it's them personally, of course. I don’t want a total stranger, that’s all.”

There goes the sliver of calm Tom had managed to seize. Not able to do anything but laugh with the loss of it, he points out, “Harry, _I’m_ practically a total stranger.”

Harry tilts his head. “Not so much as things go out here, I’m afraid. I'm not asking for anything public. I don't want to date, but I wouldn't care if you did. I wouldn't care if _you_ got serious with someone and we had to call it quits. Believe it or not, Tom, this wouldn't be the first time I’ve done this sort of thing. Ah…” his voice catches there, “Either the casual thing or…” he gestures vaguely between them: “…this. I want to stay friends, and I'm confident we can do it. The more I thought about it…” Harry shakes his head, plainly frustrated, and Tom lets him think before he continues mostly to cover for his own inability to think of anything intelligent to say. “I couldn't do this with someone I didn't want to do it with. Someone I didn't like and didn't…” Harry’s eyes skim what of Tom is available to them, and Tom knows his shirt’s rucked up around his rib cage and his lips must be at least as swollen as Harry’s. “Well, didn't like,” Harry repeats with more meaning. “And you're the only one… I mean, I thought you might be receptive to the idea.”

Tom grits his teeth and doesn't let it sting, even though there it is, finally, just like always. His reputation preceding him, and him with no one to blame but himself. Maybe they can do it, though - this and maintaining some sort of a friendship. Tom’s accomplished it before, if never quite like this or under these circumstances, and he really shouldn't be so surprised that Harry has either, having gotten something out of him about his attending a boys’ prep school in adolescence, knowing what life is like at the Academy. If Harry wants to use him for a tumble now and then and leave him to his own devices otherwise, it’s nothing Tom would have complained about before now. Something he might have liked, in fact. If Harry does ever come around off this Libby thing, it's going to be a woman, anyway, and hey - there they are, back to normal. 

Tom’s easy about things like this, has been since he lost his virginity to a friend’s mother at fifteen - a performance that, somehow, kept her inviting him back until he shipped off to the Academy - so really, it’s not like this is going to be a stretch. But if Tom-the-playboy is what Harry wants then by hell, Tom-the-playboy is what Harry’s going to get. It's not about dominance, never has been, it's about making other people want what _he_ wants, and some other time Tom might be happy to play pliant and borderline sweet, but not now. Harry’s right - the whole situation is insane, they're decades from the planet they were born on on a ship staffed by two opposing factions on the verge of becoming a powderkeg, Tom fits in with neither of them and yet he’s been put in a position of command, and he’s just been propositioned for ongoing casual sex by one of the last people he might have expected and one of the last he should have even entertained the proposal from, his superiors notwithstanding. There are precious few creature comforts available, the replicator can't make something as simple as soup right and he won't let himself drink when he wants to so badly, but Harry’s right in front of him offering, asking for _something_ , and Tom knows that indistinct need all too well, hasn't been without it, in fact, for longer than he can remember.

They're going to do this, though, they're going to do it Tom’s way. He spends a few deep breaths regaining his equilibrium then fixes Harry with a grin just a shade or two off of his most brilliant, already knowing he can't take the approach he might with a beautiful stranger in a bar.His voice as bright as his smile, Tom agrees, like it's taken him no deliberation at all, "When you put it that way. But this couch? Not the best on the back, I'm afraid. Not from my angle, at least." He sits up even though it's awkward to manage, winding up roughly shoulder level with Harry and choosing to bite down gently on what's in front of him, getting a quick, quiet gasp. "And anyway, Harry, you seem tense. You know, all you had to do was ask."

That's a lie, or Tom would like to think it is, that maybe if he hadn't already been thinking with his dick they wouldn't be here right now, but there's no sense in pointing that out. He braces one hand on the back of the couch and the other on the arm and uses the leverage to slide out from under Harry in one smooth movement, winding up on his own knees opposite the other man. Tom smooths his hands down Harry's sides and then slides his fingers under jacket, sweater and all, pausing to give Harry a searching look. The little tremor he feels under his fingers is all the answer he needs, but he asks anyway, "Help me get you out of these?"

Harry groans, but not in quite the way Tom's hoping for. "These jackets are impossible," he complains, going for his fastenings without argument. "Looks like you've got it easier, though. You could...?"

"I could," Tom agrees without preamble, shrugging out of the loose grey garment without preamble, tossing it back somewhere in the direction of his bed. This is not, on reflection, anywhere near what he'd have chosen to be wearing if he'd expected this. Harry's got his jacket undone and one arm half out of it, but he's sort of stopped there, one hand under the opposite shoulder and staring, eyes wide and throat bobbing. Tom takes it upon himself to tug one sleeve the rest of the way off and start working on the other before commenting, "You could take a picture. It'd last longer, although I'm not sure it's the best -"

Harry sighs and pulls the rest of the way out of his jacket and starts on his sweater before remarking from underneath it, "I should have known you'd have to talk the whole time."

"A lot of people have found it to be one of my more endearing qualities, I'll have you know," Tom says, unruffled. There's something in the curve of Harry's mouth that suggests he might not entirely disagree, but Tom's on a roll now and he has a curiosity to fulfill. He licks his lips, not leaving any room for speculation about what he means when he remarks, "But you know, I'd bet you've already figured out a few ways you could shut me up. Since you were thinking about me, and all."

Harry rolls his eyes, but he doesn't argue and he doesn't take Tom in hand and put things into motion the way some people might. He does run a thumb along Tom's lower lip, probing with just enough force that it's clear he wants Tom to suck on it, and - damn, it's still more than Tom would have thought he'd be capable of with such easy possession, but he's happy to oblige, drawing the digit into his mouth and feeling the roughness of the pad up close with his tongue, scraping along it with his teeth as he sucks the length of it into his mouth. All he gets in response is a single heavy breath rushing out of Harry's nostrils, that and dark eyes locked onto his own, but it's enough to Tom that he's given the suggestion of what's to come and he pulls away with a last darting lick at the tip of Harry's thumb.Tom takes the chance to explore the skin he'd sought out earlier, bare now and already a little slippery damp with perspiration, runs his hands from chest to pelvis and takes time enough to appreciate it, firm beneath and mostly smooth above. There's a small white knot of scarring right where his hands meet above the button of Harry's slacks, something that somehow a dermal regenerator hadn't quite been able to get to, and it makes him wonder, but now's not the time, and instead Tom makes quick work of the button and then urges Harry up with hands moving from his hips to his ass, disengaging when Harry gets the hint and stands to rid himself of the pants.

Tom slips off of the couch and on to his knees, fists planted flat down on either side of him. Staring up avidly with only the ghost of a smirk on his face, he knows he's a study in eager deference. "Gonna sit down?" he asks. Before he gives Harry the chance to oblige he notices that the other man has left his underwear in place. Tom wonders at that, whether it's some trace of habitual modesty or some kind of challenge, but they're in his way either way, and he takes it upon himself to rise on his knees and quip, "And what did you think I was going to accomplish with these in the way?"

As it happens, Tom can think of one thing he'd like to do, given this opportunity, and instead of shucking that last barrier clear off of Harry's hips, he leans in and drags his tongue over the fabric, tracing the shape underneath it as neatly as he can."Tom," Harry blurts, a hand coming up to rest on his shoulder, and Tom's not sure if his puff of breath is amusement or pleased surprise when Harry's nails dig in to his skin. It's all the encouragement he needs to open his mouth and do his level best to wrap it around the still clothed shaft, soaking clean through the material, this time. Harry won't like that later but he sure seems to now, eyes closed and mouth slightly agape. He recovers when Tom pulls back and settles back to the ground. "So I lied," Tom says, "I guess. I still think you should take those off and sit back down for me, though."

Harry doesn't go so far as to make an embarrassing rush of it, but neither does he take his time, and Tom appraises him appreciatively in the effort of bending over to step out of his pants' tight cuffs. Harry's trim and graceful underneath his uniform, nothing surprising, considering how unflattering Federation uniforms tend to be, but he's built more than pleasantly enough, sleek in the right spots and rounded in the others, and Tom finds his mouth watering a bit when he finally gets a glimpse at Harry's cock. He owes not a little of the success of his conquests to the fact that he really, genuinely enjoys going down on people. Likes it when they return the favour, too, but nothing has ever quite compared to the fact that he can feel so powerful on his knees, just for exploring with tongue and lips, tasting and testing and not needing to do more than indulge his own desires to make someone else come apart.

He'd been worked up to _wanting_ some time ago, in a general sense, an ache between his legs and a tingle in his skin, but not so much he couldn't treat this something like a game, but the sight and the realization of what's going to happen turns the tingle to a fire and the ache to a flexing he can feel in his cock, moisture springing to the tip.

"Fuck, you're gorgeous," he says without thinking about it, not sounding at all like his usual self, no glibness to mask anything, anymore.

Starfleet's blushing boy wonder comes out in full force once more, for all of a second, before Harry Kim, still full of surprises, reasserts himself in full force. "Get up here," he says, and if it's not an order it's damned close, brooking no argument. Tom goes, letting himself be claimed by another bruising kiss, Harry's thumb back in that spot behind his ear he's convinced now it keeps going to because of the effect Harry's noticed it has on _Tom,_ specifically, digging in just enough to hurt, provide the reminder of what it could do there with Tom's easy acceptance. It only makes Tom moan into the kiss and Harry give a corresponding rumble, and Tom wants what he wants, no doubt about it, but Harry's fingers are questing along his own torso now, down towards his waistband, and he wants that too, so he goes with it, lets Harry keep kissing him and work through the knot keeping his last bit of clothing up, deftly enough he doesn't seem at all distracted by the effort.

Tom somehow finds the brainpower to realize it's a little colder in his room than he expected when his pants slide down from his hips, but then Harry's laughing into his mouth and cupping his already bare cock and it takes everything Tom has to pay attention when Harry says, "Please don't tell me you walk around like this all day."

Tom manages a breathless laugh, "What, and get caught out during inspection? They give us standard issue for a reason, you know." Harry's wearing a look something like exasperation again, but he's wrapping his hand around Tom's cock and it doesn't take Tom long to decide that's all that really matters, except, "I really will keep talking this whole time if you don't give me a reason not to. You wanna picture Tuvok _performing_ that rather in depth inspection, because he might be the only one around here with enough of a stick up his ass."

If it does much to dampen Harry's enthusiasm it doesn't show, but he shrugs. "It's not like I'm going to make you beg," he says, though there's the undertone that he's realized it might be an option and he swipes the pad of his thumb over the tip Tom's cock as he withdraws, gathering the slickness there and bringing it up to sample without remark. Tom is going to die here in his quarters, incinerate on the spot, and he couldn't care less, any more.

Tom's offered Harry a spot to sit and not yet been taken up on it, and Harry doesn't seem to be moving to make that happen now, either, so Tom figures he's had his chance and starts working his way down Harry's body right where they're standing, teeth in his neck, tongue on his chest over the coarseness of sparse hair, his mouth wrapped around a nipple. He gets the reactions he's hoping for, mostly, a little more restrained than he might like but that will come, when it's time.

The mass-replicated carpet is rough under his knees, now they're bare, but it won't leave lasting welts and if it spurs him on a little no one has to know. He could swallow Harry down in a movement and he's done it before, when the situation called for it, buried to his knuckles in a spasming woman or with a man coming down his throat not a minute after he'd got there, but he wants to treat this with more finesse, and so Tom looks up and watches Harry's face very carefully as he gently thumbs Harry's foreskin back out of the way to trace the head of his cock. He gets another shaky breath and Harry's eyes locked on his own, rapt and liquid hot. That, Tom decides, is a lot more like it. Even more so when he closes his lips around it and sucks, drawing his Harry's foreskin back up to tease where it meets with the tip of his cock. That earns him an actual whimper, edging into a groan when he works his tongue just under the sheath, licking along the path it confines him to.

"It's been fifteen seconds," Harry remarks, voice ragged, "and I can already tell you are far, _far_ too good at that." It's not derogatory, he hasn't called Tom any sort of name or even pointed out directly just how much practice it might have entailed, but the implication's there, and Tom moans around him. Harry's hand falls to his head, a question in his eyes, and Tom shakes his head a bit, as best he can - one more thing for another time, maybe, but especially after that remark Tom's feeling quite confident he can handle this without any further guidance, thank you very much. He can recognize the unspoken request, though, so he pulls back enough to line himself up and breathe deeply before taking it all in, relishing the smoothness of it and the unadulterated musk he smells, clean but masculine, so associated with times like these that he can't help but enjoy it. He brings one hand up to meet his mouth and strokes three fingers of the other along Harry's balls, and Harry's fingers tighten in his hair but don't try and force anything, just clench, and that too has Tom making a low noise in his throat that makes Harry pulse against his tongue, tasting of salt and sweet.

Tom could draw it out, but he's so hard himself it hurts and Harry's finally gotten what seems to pass for loud, for him, babbling nonsense interspersed with Tom's name, and he employs mouth and hand and tongue to get to the finish line, Harry's chatter fading to ragged breathing until he shivers all over in all the only warning Tom needs, but still gasps, "Tom, Tom," too much a gentleman not to, it seems, but Tom only keeps on doggedly, grinning around him when Harry lets go with an arch and a keening noise that he'd probably find embarrassing, if he had the presence of mind.

Tom works him through it until Harry makes a quiet, urgent sound of protest and pushes weakly at his shoulder, and Tom obliges him but still darts back in to lap up the last bit of milky fluid at his tip. It starts a tremor in his knees and Tom gets back on his feet and bundles Harry off to the couch where he can recover more securely.

"I asked you," Tom admonishes, "to sit down. More than once. But no, better to have my back and your legs--"

He doesn't get to finish because Harry's kissing him, clearly trying to taste himself on Tom's tongue, and it's a punch in the gut all over again, enough that Tom has to wrench away and almost beg, "Harry, I'm dying here," before being dragged back in.

With enough breath, in his right mind, Tom might complain about fairness just to hear himself when Harry starts jerking him off with nothing but his own sweat and precum to help things along, but he's so keyed up by now it feels incredible and he knows he's not going to last long enough to warrant it. The last coherent thing he thinks is that it's a good thing Harry seems so bent on controlling their kissing, because he has to be worse than useless right now, and then he's bucking into Harry's hand, eyes shut so tight he sees stars and nails digging into his palms.

When he does come back to himself, Harry's fingers are still wrapped loosely around his cock and the other man has pulled away far enough to let him breathe efficiently, great, gasping, much-needed breaths through his mouth. Harry's still panting himself, but there's something about him that looks far too amused for Tom's liking.

"What?" Tom manages on a breath, not capable of much more.

Harry takes a glance at Tom's collarbone, laughs breathlessly, and swipes his tongue across it. He swallows in a way that leaves little doubt what he'd done or what he'd been looking at, and then remarks, "Impressive. The last time I saw someone pull that off at quite that distance, we were seventeen." Tom's stunned to silence and it does nothing to help when Harry dips his head and sets to finishing the job, his mouth ticklish on Tom's abdomen in the wake of what they'd done. 

He looks like trouble and sex personified in one when he comes back up and smiles, and Tom can't help himself. "Who _are_ you and what did you do with," not my Harry, he stops that just in time, "Harry Kim?"

Harry chuckles, but there's just a hint of bashfulness to it again. "You don't know everything about me, Tom." Matter of fact, untroubled. If this weren't Tom's only friend he'd be charmed. Or turned on and mistaking it for charmed, anyway. Harry doesn't let him ruminate, walking over to the replicator. "Computer, two towels. Damp. Hot."

Tom thinks of pointing out he has a shower, but the towels will do the job for now, and while it's not like he's never tried to get someone to stay... He's not going to now. This is not going to be a problem or an interference with anything else, he tells himself fiercely, it's not. He catches the towel Harry tosses at him easily and starts swabbing himself off, going first for the worst of the sweat and then for the places drying slightly sticky where Harry couldn't quite do the job. Harry's doing the same over by the replicator, then returns it to be recycled when he's done.

Tom watches him start dressing, because he'd allow himself the pleasure with anyone else, and can't help pointing out when he realizes, "You do know you were wearing socks that whole time?"

He almost expects Harry to point out that Tom hadn't been complaining. Instead, Harry says, "It's cold in here. What are you, a polar bear?"

Tom shrugs and steps back into his ugly grey pants, then the shirt. Efficient as ever, Harry's working on his jacket. He strides back over and grabs his teacup from the chair beside the couch, draining its contents before regarding Tom again. "So, I..." he starts, and Tom can only roll his eyes and snicker. Not so good at this part, then.

"You should get going," Tom agrees. "Bright and early tomorrow, yeah?"

"Breakfast at 0600?" Harry asks, no differently than he ever would.

"See you then," Tom confirms, a little relieved.

"Looking forward to it," Harry says. "And, uh, Tom... Thank you," his voice is low and quiet but he's looking Tom right in the eye. "I needed that."

Tom grins. "My pleasure. Believe me. I'll see you in the morning."

It's so close to simple, so almost-easy that Tom thinks things might be fine, even when Harry stoops to graze Tom's forehead with his lips on the way out the door.

Tom can't shake the sense that he might be in trouble, here, but he's equally determined he won't let it be.


End file.
